


To Find a Home

by footprintsonthemoon



Series: barry allen: the adorable teenage speedster [3]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Justice League - All Media Types, The Flash - All Media Types
Genre: Barry is super insecure about himself and is place in the league okay, Rated For Violence, and Hal's dirty language, bruce wants to be barry's dad even if he wont admit it, he just needs love and attention, he wants to protect this small child, the oc is barry's foster dad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-08
Updated: 2017-06-08
Packaged: 2018-11-11 09:04:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11145267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/footprintsonthemoon/pseuds/footprintsonthemoon
Summary: Barry Allen's home life is pretty shitty and Bruce Wayne aka Batdad comes to the rescue.





	To Find a Home

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I finally figured out where I want this series to go! So I changed the first work a little, but not much so if you've read it before the changes you don't have to reread it unless you want to. Basically, Barry got put in a foster home with grade A piece of shit Mark Grabowski when his mom was killed and he is fifteen. I'm really excited to really get this series started so I hope you enjoy!!!

Barry looked in the mirror and sighed. The bruise that had blossomed across his side was now almost gone, only a faint yellow tinting his skin. He let his shirt fall back down and looked at himself in the mirror. Despite being only fifteen years old, he was very muscular. Crime fighting does that to you, he figured. He knew he was powerful (Batman had told him so once), so he wondered why he let this happen to him. 

*** 

Barry and Hal were sitting in the watchtower on monitor duty. Barry had to admit that the newly launched Watchtower was pretty cool, even if Hal didn’t think it was that cool (but Hal was the equivalent of a space cop so he saw space all the time therefore his opinion didn’t really count). 

“It’s almost quitting time Kid,” Hal said, stretching out in his chair. “Ready to go home?”

Barry thought about his “home.” It's creaky floorboards and hard mattress and fridge filled with nothing but beer bottles.

“Yeah, I guess.” 

“You guess? I have leftover meat lover’s pizza calling my name.” 

“I have homework to do for trig,” Barry said.

“Homework,” Hal snorted. “One of the top three reasons I didn’t go to college.” 

Barry raised an eyebrow, “What were the other two?” 

“That is a story for another day kiddo. Right now, I’m heading home. See you later.”

Barry waved Hal goodbye and after letting himself stall another five minutes, he took the zeta beam to his house. He changed out of his costume in the old alleyway the zeta beam was in. Once he was at his house, he opened and shut the front door as quietly as possible. He tip-toed all the way to his room only to find his foster parent sitting on his bed, glaring daggers at him.

“Hey Mark,” Barry said quietly. “What are you doing up so late?” 

“What am I doing up so late?” He roared, standing up. “What are you doing just now getting home? At one am!”

“I was out with friends.” (That wasn’t a lie, really, Hal was his friend). 

“You were out with friends.” Mark deadpanned. “You know my rules boy. And you know what happens when you break them.” 

Barry closed his eyes and hung his head down, “Yes sir.” 

He felt a sharp sting across his face. 

“You look at me when I’m talking to you boy.” Mark snarled. 

Barry could see the slight glaze over his eyes, the result of five or six beers. That didn’t matter though, not really. Barry knew that this would happen even if Mark wasn’t drunk. It had happened before when he was sober, it had happened before when he was drunk. It almost hurt more that Barry knew he couldn’t blame it on the alcohol. 

“Yes, sir.” He whispered. 

“Good,” Mark smirked before slapping him across the face. 

Barry slowly sunk down to the floor and curled into a ball as Mark punched and kicked and screamed at him. He tried to block out everything and make himself small. (This thought didn’t occur to him until later but it was ironic that The Flash, a hero who stood for justice, was letting himself get hurt like this. He told Hal this and he laughed a little, and Hal, in turn, told him that it was kind of morbid and a lot sad. Barry could see that.) Once it was over, once it was finally over, for now, Mark stood up straight, took a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped a little blood off his hands on it. 

“Now boy, you might not see it now, but all I’m doing here is trying to teach you some discipline. Now I want you cleaned up and in bed in twenty minutes.” He walked out of the room and shut the door gently behind him. 

Barry didn’t move, he stayed in his safe little ball. He sat curled on the floor, bloodied and trembling. Somehow, mechanically, he stood up and walked into the bathroom and took a shower. He pulled on some boxers and pajama pants and laid down on his hard bed, not even getting under his threadbare blankets. He looked at the ceiling for what seemed like hours, just staring. Barry figured he could have it worse. He could be out on the streets or shoved in an overcrowded orphanage. He could have nothing to eat, even if most of what he ate now was takeout. It could always be worse. Mark could not have bought his story that the only meta power he had was accelerated healing, Mark could know his secret identity. He could not be The Flash. He could not have the League. He could be all alone. 

Then why did he still feel so awful? 

Tears started to stream down Barry’s face as he laid there and cried. He just had to make it to eighteen, then he could be done with Mark and this God-awful house. He had been doing this since he was eight, what was three more years? He couldn’t tell the League, they wouldn’t care much about his home life, if anything they would be disgusted with how ungrateful he was for having a home and someone to feed him. Just three more years and this will all be over. Barry cried himself to sleep that night.

*** 

Barry woke to find his whole body sore. He hadn’t felt this sore since he took on the Rouges and a few others at a prison breakout last year. He groaned and just thought about lying in bed all day long. His phone then went off and he reluctantly rolled over and checked it. 

Justice League meeting at ten. 

Barry let out an even louder groan. He really didn’t feel like going to a meeting but he knew Bruce would skin him alive if he missed. So he very slowly got out of bed and made his way around passed-out-drunk-Mark. He made it down to the zeta beam alleyway, flashed into his suit and went up to the Watchtower. He flashed into the meeting room and in his chair, forcing a smile on his face. 

“Let’s get this show on the road!” 

Everyone turned and looked at him. 

“You’re five minutes late Allen.” Bruce glowered at him. 

“Sorry Bats, I slept in a little.” He said (which was not lie, thank you very much). 

Bruce just gave him another look before getting on with the meeting. Sometime through the meeting, he started getting a little warm, so he slid his cowl off his face. Clark, who was in the middle of a mission report, faltered and stopped. Barry realized he was looking at him. All the other leaguers turned and looked and him too, which made him squirm in his seat a little. 

“Uh, why are you all looking at me like that?” He asked, starting to get nervous. 

“What’s that around your jaw Barry?” Diana asked softly. 

He moved his hand around to the side of his face and hissed a little when he touched bruised skin. (Barry remembered last night hazily when at one point, Mark had grabbed him by his jaw and picked him off the floor, practically holding him up. He remembered him yelling at him, calling him worthless, a good-for-nothing ¬piece of shit.) He silently cursed himself, how could he have missed that? 

“Oh, it’s nothing Princess. I just got caught up in a nasty fight last night with Weather Wizard and a chunk of hail caught me.” He tried to play it off (that, he admitted, was a lie).

“Allen, Weather Wizard is currently locked up in Belle Reve. You didn’t fight anyone last night, you didn’t even patrol after monitor duty last night.” Bruce said, his voice seemingly even lower than normal. He also wasn’t going to question how Bruce knew that, he was Batman after all. 

“Barry, that’s a hand print bruised on your face. You have accelerated healing, it must have been really bad if it’s still that prominent on your face.” Hal said, concern seeping into voice. 

Well heck. 

“Well you see, it’s actually kind of a funny story-“ 

“Bartholomew,” J’onn interrupted him. “Tell them or I will.”

So J’onn had read his mind. Traitor. Okay, he didn’t really blame him. He’d have probably done the same thing. 

“Tell us what?” Arthur asked. 

Barry opened his mouth to say it, to say the God-awful truth, but he couldn’t. It was like someone took a metal vise and clamped it around his throat. He couldn’t say it, he couldn’t bear himself to admit the truth. That he was weak and ungrateful and shouldn’t even be in the League really. 

“I-“ He tried, but he couldn’t and there were tears in his eyes and he just couldn’t do it. “I can’t do it J’onn, I just can’t.” 

(This had gotten Bruce concerned. Who had hurt Barry and who was making him cry? Bruce had never seen Barry cry. Bruce was concerned and also angry. He was very angry.) 

“I can show them if you would like,” J’onn said, his voice the softest he had ever heard.

Barry nodded his head, he whispered, please. J’onn nodded his head and worked his magic. Barry saw the others go still. He waited for what seemed like an hour but was probably only a minute or two. His heart started beating faster and faster and his anxiety was building up. Finally, everyone came out of it and he held his breath. 

“What the fuck. What the actual fuck.” Hal practically exploded. 

This was it. He was about to screamed at and kicked out of the League and the only good thing in his life was about to be ripped away from him. 

“I’m going to fucking kill Mark. I’m going to rip out his throat, no I’m going to drop him off the tallest fucking building I can find.” 

Well, that wasn’t what Barry was expecting. 

“Allow me to assist you.” Diana practically growled. 

“Um, what?” Barry asked, almost bewildered. “We’re not killing anyone. At least I don’t think so?”

His words brought their attention on him again and, for a moment, their anger faded away at the sight of him. 

“Barry,” Clark started softly. “How… how could you not tell us? That was going on for years and you’ve known us for a quite a while now.” 

He started wringing his hands in his lap, “Well after a while it just kind of became normal. But then I got my powers and I managed to play it off to him as just accelerated healing. Mark then realized what that meant and, uh, how much more he could… hurt me. By then I could heal away the injuries in a day or so and it wasn’t that big of a deal. I didn’t bother you guys with because, well, you’re the Justice League. You have better things to worry about.” 

“Barry, you are one of the top priorities in the League. If you could have just told us…” Hal ran his hands through his hair frustratingly. “But now we’re going to get you out of there, I swear to God he’ll never lay another finger on you."

He felt a surge of emotions suddenly as tears pricked his eyes (man, he really had to stop that). 

“You mean,” He started, his voice thick with tears and emotion. “You mean I never have to go back there?” 

Diana, who was sitting next to him, placed her hand over his own, “Never again.” 

Bruce was being oddly silent. When something in the League upset him, he tended to say so. The only indication that he was upset had been the clench of his jaw. 

“Kent,” He said, standing up. “Find out everything you can on Mark Grabowski that will lead to his arrest. I’ll assist you later. Allen, come with me.” 

He walked out of the meeting room, his cape giving a little swish as he did. Barry stood up uneasily and slowly made his way out of the meeting room. He saw Bruce walk into a medical examination room and he followed him in there, shutting the door behind him. 

“Uh, hey Bruce.” He spoke softly. 

“Barry, sit down.” Bruce gestured to the examination table. 

He up hopped there and started swinging his legs nervously. Bruce tugged down his cowl and his blue eyes seemed to pierce him. 

“Barry, do you know what’s going to happen after this?”

“I don’t know,” He shrugged. “I’ll probably just get stuck in a home until I’m eighteen. Maybe another foster family, but probably not. They don’t tend to want to take you when you’re older.” 

“Barry,” Bruce started. “How would you feel about coming to live with me?” 

That threw Barry for a loop. 

“Live… with you? How would that even work, how would you even know me?” 

“We can fabricate a pretty solid story that I knew your parents and when I got wind of your situation, I decided to help out. But Barry, I’m not a foster parent. I would have to adopt you.” 

“Adopt me?” He repeated back, not quite sure he was hearing him right. 

“Yes. You wouldn’t have to think of me, like that, as your father. But you would have a home, food to actually sustain you and not just fast food twice a day. But, of course, only if you agree.” Bruce looked almost nervous. 

Barry didn’t know what to say. He- that was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for him. So, he jumped off the table and hugged Bruce. Bruce stiffened underneath his hug but loosened up after a moment. He hesitantly put his arms around Barry, returning the hug. 

“Thank you,” Barry mumbled into Bruce’s suit. “Thank you.” 

Bruce didn’t respond, he just curled his hand over the back of the boy’s head and held him a little tighter.


End file.
